4.47.42: Oh, and at this point I'm get +20k metal a second from the 4+ million salvage at Zarpar. Much nicer than the usual 10% efficiency, given how normally my economy is bottomed out.

I hadn't anticipated the interaction, but with the tendency of counterposts to counterwave your HW, there's now striking resemblance between "Counterattack Guard Post" and "Distribution Node"

"Push this button to make a hostile deposit into your bank account"

More generally, the salvage mechanic seems to be serving you in very good stead in terms of being able to rebuild between attacks. I daresay without it you may have died already simply from metal deprivation and repeated attacks.

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5.09: Man these guys are predicatable. Whatever happened to taking into account strength on adjacent planets in their attack calculations, or was that just for when they attack?

There's not really any such logic right now... but I'm working on it

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Three. Grav. Reactors.

What did you do to offend the RNG?

Well, at least there's no Wrath Lances.

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More generally, the salvage mechanic seems to be serving you in very good stead in terms of being able to rebuild between attacks. I daresay without it you may have died already simply from metal deprivation and repeated attacks.

Well, technically he did already die...

However, I guess since it was a short term, tactical mistake rather than a more pervasive, strategic mistake (aka, he wasn't in a spot where he couldn't of survived), I guess that sort of doesn't count "as much".

More generally, the salvage mechanic seems to be serving you in very good stead in terms of being able to rebuild between attacks. I daresay without it you may have died already simply from metal deprivation and repeated attacks.

Well, technically he did already die...

However, I guess since it was a short term, tactical mistake rather than a more pervasive, strategic mistake (aka, he wasn't in a spot where he couldn't of survived), I guess that sort of doesn't count "as much".

I meant before that But yea.

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5.34: Command station back up. Now time for operation 'Turrets, lots of turrets'.

Given that waves are currently on the order of 1,500 ships, and I dread the next CPA which will probably be declaring in the next hour, let's go with primarily defensive unlocks from that 3k knowledge. So, area mines and grav turrets. Hmm, and a spire starship to make up the other 500 knowledge.

5.40: So, the defences are building. You might notice that this is pretty much every Mk. 1 turret, ever. With the exception of 15 or so grav turrets which are on the path to my homeworld. Hopefully the mother of all minefields will thin the ranks a touch, especially given all the gravity turrets hidden in the field. Near the end of the minefield, but juust out of firing range of the command station (for most ships) a line of 80-odd tractor turrets await. And the vast majority of turrets there (obviously excluding lightnings and flaks) are covering both the wormhole exit and command station at all times. Not seen: The 48 Mk. 5 missiles turrets just off the bottom of the screen, and the 48 Mk. 5 snipers at the edge of the gravity well. It's a much shorter walk than I would like for defensive purposes, but they'll fly through a wall of lead to get anywhere.

A paltry wave of 900 bombers is announced.

5.42: You may have noticed up there that I'm running at -45,000 metal a second. Possibly because I decided to build Mk. 5 snipers on Kuer and the homeworld. I'm sure the AI will leave me alone for 10 minutes while everything comes online, right? Especially as constructors are currently paused, and I still need to refleet.

5.43: While we're waiting, let's talk grav reactors. These things are seriously evil. And I have to deal with three, one of which is sitting under a Mk. 5 forcefield. Now my normal reaction here would be 'go make some spire rams, flashbang the AI homeworld'. Problem is, I just used my last ebonite on a Martyr and Titanite can't be used for rams. No problem, I'll just make that long awaited pair of Mk. 5 jumpships and go looking for another asteroid field. Oh. Jumpships aren't blackhole immune.

F*@#

5.43.30: So, my new toys. A core railpod fab. Just a smidge under 9 million damage per cap, twice that if they survive for another 2 seconds. They could be a nice anti grav reactor weapon. Oh, sniper immune you say?

F*@#

5.44: My left-over penetrator has only 28 million damage per shot. It won't be able to take out a 60 million health grav reactor. Maybe I can use that Titanite to build a Mk. 5 penetrator though, at the astronomical cost of 1.5 million metal. Could at least deal with the one under the forcefield. Oh, wait. Planetery tachyon coverage. No tachyon immunity.

F*@#

5.44.30: Oh, and they're immune to nukes and EMPs too. Just to add to the fun. Also I suppose an EMP warhead could at least take out the forcefield.

5.44.40: Mk. 5 Forcefields are EMP immune.

F*@#

5.45: The only blackhole immune ships I have are raids. In desperation, I even check the mercenary space dock. Nothing. Looks like my best option at the point is to just spam youngling tigers and bombers at the immensely powerful guard posts with radar dampening and slowing drones. One of which is sitting on the opposite side of the gravity well, and another of which is under 264 million HPs worth of Mk. 5 forcefield.

5.46: Another 900 bombers. Will the defences come online in time to deal with the double-strength wave? The tension is overwhelming.

5.48: I remember I have 74 HaP. Core guard-posts are immune to sabotage hacks.

F*@#

5.49.20: Last turret finishes building. Looks like the 1,800 bombers decided they had better things to do than attack me. I momentarily rejoice at my positive metal flow, before turning all constructors back on and watching it crash back down to -7,000/s. And I'm not even building starships yet.

5.50: As expected, the first scout 2 off the production line and straight into the maw of the AI homeworld finds all 1,900 bombers there. They don't look inclined to move. On the plus side it also confirms that the core electric post is not in range of the wormhole exit, which I was afraid of.

5.51: At 20,000 energy and 80,000 metal for a full cap, railpods should at least provide some nice defensive alpha strike. Especially given x6 against polycrystal. No attrition too, so bonus there.

5.53.36: Railpods are amazing. Amazing. 3 ion cannons and one OMD down in 5 seconds. Which leaves the other ion cannon under a Mk. 5 forcefield, so they start taking potshots at the bombers.

5.53.45: All of the tigers die before getting more than 1/6th of the way to the grav reactor. Somehow though I only have slightly more threat than when I jumped in, so I estimate that railpods must have taken down a good 100 bombers in between shots on ion cannons.

5.56.20: Roughly 2/3rds of the fleet is rebuilt. 3,400 ships in the threat fleet, missile frigates must be on the homeworld by now. I send in a full cap of younglings and railpods again, aiming to distract the bombers. I also take down the tachyon guardian while I'm there, for the feel good factor if no actual benefit against planetary tachyon coverage. Core warhead interceptor also goes down, but no other targets of opportunity present themselves.

5.56.36: Threat fleet, which you may remember comprises three normal waves, attacks. I'm not sure whether this is better or worse than just having the AI homeworld on alert all the time, to be honest.

5.56.54: Area mines - good buy, or best buy? 1,400 ships down. I think the rest of the threat is having second thoughts about coming in.

5.57.15: Oh wait, it's just missile frigates being slow coaches.

5.58.18: 3,400 ships annihilated. 8+ million scrap. And honestly, I don't think they even touched me. The grand total of my losses was 1 grav turret, and maybe a couple of hundred fleet ships which were quickly rebuilt. Gonna have to give the constantly building railpod railcannons some credit for that one, as well as the area mines. It wasn't until about 30 seconds before the end of the attack that I realised Lyudmila was sitting, switched off, at the edge of the gravity well and a signficant number of ships were angling in on her instead of the home command, which means the mines were actually even less effective that they could potentially have been. Making sure she sits on a line between the command station and wormhole, next time.

6.00: 6 hours in. 12 hours 20 minutes in elapsed time. I now own 4/10 planets, within the next few minutes my fleet will be back at full capacity thanks to the AI's generous donation of scrap metal, and I have a defensive chokepoint that I'm fairly sure can hold off the next CPA. Especially given that I still have a Martyr in reserve.

On the negative side...

I need to go noodle around on the guitar or something for an hour while I try to work out exactly how to take these blighters down. Any suggestions would be really, really gratefully received. Really.

Ah yes, railpods. The true conversion of metal to damage. I suspect they may have the highest effective dps (in good conditions) of all bonus ship types.

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Any suggestions would be really, really gratefully received. Really.

Build all the space docks and all the engineers you can right on top of your outgoing wormhole and sustain absolute maximum-rate railpod bombardment until only the sniper-immune remains.

That might require a few more digits of metal than you have, of course.

Railpods are also probably fairly nice for shooting down incoming grav drones, which might allow something like a conventional fleet attack on key targets (of course, any outcome short of complete victory means any such fleet is a 100% loss due to the black hole effect). I'm not sure if their autotargeting will cooperate with you there, though. Railclusters are also great for anti-drone point-defense, but that's not in your toolbox right now.

Sabotage Hacking may help with some things, like forts or forcefields.

I forget, can you still build turrets on AI planets that are in supply?

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So, are you saying that grav reactors are evil but appropriately so, or overpowered even by AI HW brutal pick standards?

I still feel like the planetary tachyon coverage (as opposed to say, a long range one) provided by the AI Home Command Station is, well, cheap in a bad way, as it is effectively like a "free" "brutal pick", or at least it is like one in severity of effect to the battlefield.

I can't find it, but the imp in Eador: Master of a Broken World tells you that the various masters all have powers over various elements, like fire.It's pretty obvious you don't have these kinds of powers.So you ask the imp what your power is. "Why, you have the power to go back in time and redo your mistakes!"

6.0.01: Special Forces command posts on Kuer, Senow and Micvarape all mysteriously explode. When asked what happened, the sub-commanders shiftily eye the Mk. 5 snipers and say 'It's cathartic, innit'.

6.01: With three of the ion cannons down, 20 Mk. 2 scouts decide to take a jaunt through the AI homeworld to Murdoch. They almost make it.

6.02.30: The three scout starships are pulled from their current tachyon duties. 33 brave souls make the jump through the Desenan wormhole, hoping for sight of a land previously unknown.

6.02.52: The core heavy beam guard post sitting next to the wormhole to Murdoch annihilates them all.

6.05: Five transports are created. The reincarnated scouts, along with all 5 scout starships, split into two groups. Each enters a transport.

6.06.06: A full cap of railpods and younglings jumps into the Desenan system, with orders to raise hell.

6.08.08: The transports slip in right behind them, and make a dash for Murdoch.

6.06.20: Grav drones catch four of the transports. One, however, with 18 scouts aboard, is nearly at the Murdoch wormhole. It explodes, taking the first hit from the core beam guard post. 6 seconds before it reloads.

6.06.24: Desperately struggling amid rapidly failing cloaking superboost, the scouts reach the Murdoch wormhole. One solitary starship makes it through. The other transports are wiped out, with no survivors. A reprisal wave is announced. But if we have more, new, vital information about the AI then their sacrifice cannot have been for nothing.

OH COME ON!

I just ... seriously ... I left the game paused, and had to just walk away for a few minutes. The RNG has been kicking me in the teeth the whole time, but is really taking the piss.

When I came back, to stare blankly at that solitary remaining scout starship, I at least noticed this.

So, at least I know there's an ARS and an armored golem. Although them showing up by hovering over the cloaked ship list is probably a bug.

6.09.25: 8,177 ship CPA announced. Well, at least it isn't syncing with the other two waves I guess. At this point I'm fairly sure this CPA has got to be the vast majority of AI ships remaining in the galaxy. On the plus side, I'd rather have the strategic reserve come to me rather than have to fight it on the homeworld.

6.10: Operation railpod is suspended to build up metal reserves as much as possible. Docks are rebuilt at the edge of the grav well, where they can be used defensively. Scout reports from Desenan indicate there are now 200 more ships there than when we started. I'd estimate 2,300 or so are strategic reserve, so draining some of that strength would be welcome.

6.11: 698 cloaked ship wave to sync with the CPA.

6.13: Literally every possible regular ship has been built. Even the three raids, which are likely to be only marginally useful on the defensive. 5 lightning warheads are arrayed near the command station, just in case, and the Martyr stands sentry at wormhole waiting to wipe the first few thousand ships. 1,556 threat. 8,862 incoming wave.

6.14: Railpods are harassing the threat. Merc docks are online and set to build etherjet tractors once metal goes over 500,000. Every little helps.

6.15.03: Half hearted attempt at a rope-a-dope. Surprisingly, the AI takes the bait.

6.15.27: 24 seconds, 1,500 threat removed. With just 4 minutes before the CPA hits too, plenty of time to rebuild. I notice that the attack still isn't beelining for the command station - I realise that the off-centre placement of the mini-forts and rally post is drawing them off to one side. Moving those.

6.17: 2 minutes to CPA. Minefield and some force fields still rebuilding, but should be back up in time. Mini-forts and main fleet are now positioned behind the command station, in a line with the wormhole exit. Lightnings and enclaves under the command station shields. Lyudmila and the sentinal frigates are at the edge of the grav well, also in line. If things go badly here there'll be no escape for her this time.

6.18.59: All defences are back online. A fleet of 950 ships, every single one I can build bar super expensive mercs, waits to take on a force of 8,800. 175,000 excess power from matter converters, although 100k of that will go straight to Lyudmila. I expect fleet losses to have levelled that out by the time the energy collector on Micvarape goes down though.

6.19.00:

1,677 Mk. II ships

122 Mk. III ships

1078 Mk IV ships

330 Mk V ships

and 4,970 Mk. 2 ships from the strategic reserve.

This will be bad. I'm expecting to lose the command station early on, I'm just hoping I can keep them away from the railpod fab.

6.19.14: Hang on. There's only 6,415 threat. The CPA was declared for 8,177. I was right, the AI is quite literally sending EVERY SINGLE SHIP IN THE GALAXY after me.

9.19.45: 5 mercenary etherjet tractors sit quietly in the middle of my fleet. I don't think they quite know what they've signed on for.

6.20: A scout moves towards Desenan to scope the situation. Every single dock in the galaxy is paused, except for the 10 on Micvarape building railpods. 20 engineers stand by next to them, under the forcefields surrounding the core sniper turret controller and railpod fab.

6.20.21: The teleport battlestation space dock comes back on. I like teleport battleships, both for their super fast reinforcement speed and their AoE minor electric attacks. Just a shame those 2 ARSes only gave me the one set of ships.

6.20.30. Wave hits. 650 odd eyebots, for 7,100 total threat.

6.20.37: Scouts report only 1,500 of it on Desenan so far. Railpods go to disrupt the carriers. I've got the cash to rebuild them.

6.21.06: Threat is now at 7,101. That was not as effective as I'd hoped.

6.222.39: Contact. By the time all the carriers pop and the initial mines and railpods blow, 1,000 ships are missing within a second. I think I can save the Martyr for now.

6.22.52: 470 attack. 5,272 threat. Not bad for 13 seconds. 20 remains rebuilders start constructing - I should have had these guys ready to repair the minefields.

6.23: 1,000 attack. 391 of which are zenith sieges. This is worth a Martyr.

6.23.10: 670 attack. Cancel that. I'll hold it back for now. I do, however, edge it and the lightning missile the cloaker also hides closer to the wormhole.

6.23.13: Another carrier pops. 1,600 attack, 1,400 of it next to the wormhole. Martyr approaches again.

6.23.17: Oh hell. 4 carriers come in. Combined they have over 3,000 ships. 4,393 attack. 684 threat. Okay, plan. In a couple of seconds, the Martyr will pop. That'll wipe 1,500 ships. The lightning is then there for a follow up if I feel the situation warrants.

6.23.18: Martyr pops. 1,300 kills. Not as many as I would have liked.

6.23.21: My fleet is down to 500 ships. I suddenly realise Lyudmila has been sitting at the edge of the gravity well, switched off. Don't know how I could forget about her.

6.23.37: 2,000 attack. I wave the lightning missiles off. I don't care if the command station goes down, so long as the fabs are okay.

6.24.02: 1,200 attack on planet. A poll of my forcefields shows an average of 80% on the ones around the home command. A wave announcement - 1,487 missiles frigates in a minute and a half.

6.24.19: Eyebots. 600 eyebots. That was the remaining threat. Luckily all 5 scout starships and 2 decloaker drones are positioned to catch them as they come in.

6.24.50: It's done. The last attackers on Micvarape are down. So why does it still say 198 attack?

6.24.51: Oh hell. 127 eyebots on Kuer, the rest on Senow. Scout starships to the rescue.

6.24.58: Looks like they're all heading for Senow, scouts catch most of them along that path.

6.25.34: 300 fleet ships on Senow, plus all 5 scouts. 83 eyebots. I've got a scout next to the command station, one sitting on the wormhole and the other three desperately scouring the gravity well. Where on earth are they.

6.25.51: They make a run for Kuer. Half get decloaked and die. Everyone lunges after the escapees.

6.26.18: 5 make it to Zarpar. My home planet.

6.26.27: Caught by the 7 remaining tractor turrets on my homeworld, more than one apiece, I laugh as they die. 3,000 scrap metal drifting through the void.

6.27: You'd hardly know I just stopped 7,000 ships. Starship wise I only lost one raid, one enclave and 3 riots, and defences are back at 75% capacity already. Just time to turn the docks back on now to rebuild the triangle ships. Command station forcefields never went below 50%, no power loss and no command station loss.

6.29: Lyudmila is immune to blackholes. Lyudmila fires energy bursts, which I don't think are officially classes as sniper rounds. How did I not see this before.

6.30: A cloaker starship warily leads the 4 unused lightning warheads to the edge of the gravity field. 192 railpods prepare to warp into the AI homeworld, to see just how atrophied the strategic reserve are.

6.30.06: Bar 40-odd guardians and starships, the only things on Desenan are the 1,500 missile frigates from earlier. The strategic reserve don't even twitch. Seems like the perfect time to attack.

6.0.01: Special Forces command posts on Kuer, Senow and Micvarape all mysteriously explode. When asked what happened, the sub-commanders shiftily eye the Mk. 5 snipers and say 'It's cathartic, innit'.

The Mysterious Massacre of April 7th. Thousands of Special Forces Guard Posts have simultaneous and very, very final accidents.

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OH COME ON!

Surely you must have said something untoward about the RNG's algorithms? I've seldom seen it in such form.

And I see you've accidentally _ another CPA plus waves, and now the AI's backfield should be about completely empty (one advantage of the 10-planet cage match working in your favor, there). And even the SR is temporarily depleted. Something tells me that if you can't take that HW now you can't take it at all.

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You'd hardly know I just stopped 7,000 ships.

Four words: Railpods and Area Mines. A true horror to AI offensives.

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Something tells me that if you can't take that HW now you can't take it at all.

Sadly, I think you may be right. I've tried about another hour and a half of play from this point, even save scumming back to it twice. My very best effort came from replacing the warp command station with a military to get my first actual wave in 4 hours. Them being on the planet, and my fleet elsewhere, was enough to get the 1,500 missile frigates to attack me and leave me an entirely ship free AI homeworld.

I jumped my entire 950 ship fleet in. I managed to get the first grav reactor down to 89% before they got wiped. This is the best possible outcome that I had. The ship slowing and grav drones from three different grav posts are just quite simply far too much to overcome. One on its own would be a nightmare, 3 is impossible.

Things that could have worked, but didn't:

Penetrators, while everything else on the planet is distracted smacking on throw-away ships. They would accept an attack order, but not actually attack the station when they got there. Even when they had scout info.

Railpods - Sniper immunity.

The cursed golem - Again, accepted the attack order. But then didn't actually attack it at all, just moved towards it firing at everything else.

Fleet blob - Took way too long to get into range, were under attack from 600,000*20 at 11,000 range but were radar damped out to at least 5,500.

Hopping over the homeworld entirely - I seriously do think that if the jumpships had blackhole machine immunity I would have been able to win this. By quietly finding myself another asteroid field, if nothing else

Not spending that last ebonite on another Martyr - I should be able to keep a sensor hacker up for the 30 seconds I need, and the rams would make short work of the grav posts. But that would involve save scumming back over an hour, which I don't think I have the will to do.

So yeah, I think I'll have to gracefully retire this one at the 6 hour point.

Hmm, well this is wierd. Have the attached save anyway. Sometimes the penetrator can fire, sometimes it doesn't seem to. Possibly some strange interaction with the radar dampening, maybe it jitters just out of attack range? Both golem and scouts are on planet, so it should have vision. I also just realised that the cursed golem probably can fire too, it's just not radar dampening immune so it needs to get within 5,500 range.

Anyway, off the back of this save I can easily wipe that first grav reactor and escape with the golem intact. Lose the entire rest of the fleet, and then the special forces show up to buffet people with their shields (seriously, 30 odd riots with shields have an interesting knock-back effect). So having me try this again may just have restored my faith in this game...

Just tested with the penetrator: I have to get it within radar dampening range (and it won't close there normally on an attack order, it seems, and that's a bug), but when I do and give the order it happily fires a large bolt of unguardpostium.

Though I daresay in that particular attack, it was quite superfluous. That golem is to be feared.

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